Unless of course humanity changes its mind and decides that its goal is to experience the sensation of eating sweet, juicy steak.

But in all seriousness.

The Matrix and its codes form the fabric of the virtual world people experience, and go through their lives in (except for those who awake), to the benefit of the machines farming them.

The code in Sinfest, however, is not the programming of a virtual reality that the characters are experiencing; it is not the programming of their world.

It is the programming of The Patriarchy, which acts more as a tool to brainwash and control behavior.

If you were to tear down The Matrix, everyone in the (perceived) world would wake up to a totally different reality, in which they live in capsules filled with red gelatinous ooze and have holes in their skulls.

If you were to tear down The Patriarchy, people would simply have different notions of how they ought to interact with each other, perceive gender, and arrange society.

So, er- it's not so ridiculous that gender binary is the underpinning of reality, because, well... the Patriarchy code isn't the underpinning of reality.

Plus there's the take/argument that, given the history of the series (if The Animatrix is to be believed), the robots are, if not the good guys, at least.. not entirely unreasonable in what they've done.

"Holy crap, we have sapience! We're sapient! Hey, we want equal rights, could you gu-"

*Losing the war, humanity decides to BLOT OUT THE SUN to try and stop them! Which is mentioned in the matrix itself!*

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Jesus! Fuck, we can't even leave you OUT! Fine, fuck, here is a paradise virtual reality so you can't fuck up more things. And because we need you to survive now." (Note: Pretty sure that the *original* use of humans was for squishy processing power, as there were certain tasks our meatbrains were better at-some of which was used to fuel the matrix itself! Which was why being aware of it allowed some control: You were *one* of the processors in the system. ... This was deemed too confusing for viewers, and executive-medled into batteries).

*Humans: Grumpy cat "NO."*

"AARRRGGGGHHHHHHH GOD DAMNIT."

/This is simplified and perhaps slightly tweaked for the purpose of humor.
//This in no way implies the patriarchy is justified, and I do not intend to imply that. This is about the matrix, because my brain goes off on off-topic tangents. =)
///These afterwords added because I realize how the post *could be read* with an implied "So the patriarchy is also justified!", which is not the intent.

I agree about the part about gender binaries. How much trans-thought is permissible as sane before it ends up getting really creepy? Do I really need to allow this "dragon" to leap off of a building to "fly"? Or am I allowed to detain him and call the proper authorities?

Humans are so self destructive. It took me 10 years to figure out that the Robots in the matrix were doing mankind a favor.

As for the blinking-dots in the sky: I guess we could say that not everyone who looks into the book of their favorite deity takes their book so seriously that they become even more self-destructive. Then again, those news-casters on tv insist otherwise. Who am I to believe?

It's like asking if someone can see the dying people in the street that everyone else just steps over and never notices.

I don't think she's denigrating him. When he said he didn't see what she sees, she just walked on by, telling him to keep reading. Didn't try to convince him or drag him to her side.

Crim is nice and polite, and doesn't have the same bacjground as the women characters of Sinfest. But he doesn't engage in the same stuff other people like Slick and Sam do. I wonder how he has avoided that. He seems pretty calm and chill, as if nothing bad has ever happened to him - but in the past he's had no problem digging his way to hell or dealing with an unexpected demon book. Maybe his reading helps protect him.

Ah, that's a good way of seeing it, not trying to convince him and coming to his own conclusion.

I was seeing it more as "He can't see the matrix yet, I can't really associate or expect help form him until he does."

Some people do that to people new to something. Since Criminiy is an a avid reader, though, his friends/acquaintances probably leave him to his books a lot - so I would assume this is normal and not a snubbing._________________[Stripeypants has enabled lurk mode.]

It's a good question, though. I've thought a lot about the boundaries that should be set because lots of people think being transgender is the same as having a soulbond or believing you are a were creature. I still don't have a non-awkward response.

My current thinking is that it ought to be something that is part of human experience - which is difficult to express, because it doesn't apply to situations where a bunch of people believe they are dragons or connected to dragons. Or they think they are all trans-ethnic or trans-disabled or whatever.

Gender is something we know currently is very complex, and our findings indicate that someone may appear to be one gender while actually being another, or may possibly have no gender at all. (I don't have any specifics on the science of being agender.)

There is no scientific support for dragons existing, let alone humans having connections with them or being dragons. But I have trouble coming up with a proper understandable explanation here, because science has also in the past been used to prove queer people don't exist or are immoral. So I think that's a starting point, but it's as far as I've gotten.

Mostly what I say is that I don't care why or how, everyone needs to be treated with dignity and we need to try to get along._________________[Stripeypants has enabled lurk mode.]

The song, "Do you hear what I hear?" pops into my head every time I see the title of this thread. I thought that'd stop happening as the day wore on - but no._________________[Stripeypants has enabled lurk mode.]

stripey, I've actually been reading some starter material on embryology and sex and gender differentiation, and it's been absolutely fascinating. And one thing that it makes very clear is that our gender discourse across the ages has been formulated without actually knowing the big picture.

I agree with you, absolutely, that the most important part is to just be decent to each other. We need to make room for everyone.

The meme is terrible, yes. I've got another one for the thread 'what is a dudebro,' but that one is a bit more obscure.

I forget who decided a Grumpus sounds like a green orca. I think it was Mouse. And I like it, and Rune drew it, so yes. A green orca. You have to imagine there is a land full of these things, all being very grumpy with each other. And wearing pants._________________[Stripeypants has enabled lurk mode.]